Since the beginning of time, the immortal Aeterni have been first-born sons. Until now...

As far as Cassandra Marston is concerned, immortality exists only in the fictional world of movies and books. Even if she did believe in living forever, becoming immortal isn’t on her bucket list. She wants to meet the right man, fall in love, have children and grow into a comfortable old age with him.

Keegan Fitzgerald has lived for thousands of years and is happiest when sequestered on his mountain, coming down only for business and the occasional one-night-stand. He has spent thousands of years looking out for himself and only himself.

On a stormy night, fate brings the immortal Keegan and the mortal Cassandra together when he kills her in an auto accident. With her inexplicable return to life, nothing will ever be the same. Keegan must learn to put the needs of a beautiful and desirable woman before his own. While Cassandra’s forced to abandon her dreams and learn to live forever. As necessity turns to passion, living forever becomes a dream come true.

Discovering her immortality isn’t natural but created by a madman bent on destroying the Aeterni way of life and keeping Cassandra for himself, Keegan and Cassandra must race against time to secure her future so they can have forever...or time will run out.

She
looked at Keegan, her beautiful emerald eyes begging him for answers to
something she was going to have a very difficult time understanding. “How…how am I healing
like this?” She looked over her shoulder at Derian standing behind her, his
hand once again on her shoulder, and asked, “Why are you up and alive?”

Gaderian reached out and put a tender hand
on her cheek. “You
didn’t know it, my dear, but there’s magic in the world after all.” With a sad
smile he moved away and leaned against the wall.

She turned back to Keegan, searching his
face for answers. “I don’t understand.”

Keegan sighed. At the moment it didn’t matter how it’d
happened, the woman was immortal, and someone had somehow succeeded in making
her that way. There was a lot to understand, and it was going to be very hard
for her. “Will you trust me?” he asked as softly as he could. He didn’t want to
scare her again, he’d already done that enough for one evening.

“I
don’t trust anyone at the moment.”

“Good
answer, darlin’, and you shouldn’t. But the man who held you seems to have
changed your genetic makeup and now you’re like me and my friend over there.
You’re going to need us to teach you what you need to know. How to live the
rest of your life. Nothing will ever be the same for you, I’m afraid.” For any
of them. The Aeterni race was male only, no exception ever. Until now.

Keegan had practiced medicine long before
DNA was used for anything more than a theory here and there. Still, he did
understand something about genes and how they worked. He knew there was an
anomaly in Aeterni that made them different than mortals. It only made sense
that someone had somehow given that anomaly to her. If whoever had done this
could do it to her, who else could he change? How would the Circle of Ghadan ever
be able to keep up with them? Stop them from destroying the entire Aeterni
population by bringing them to the notice of the mortal world? Millennia of
effort could be destroyed in nothing more than a heartbeat of time.

Hiding his concerns about what was happening,
he placed his hand against her cheek, wanting to erase the look of confusion in
her eyes. “Hopefully
we can find out what happened to you using the resources we have at our
disposal.”

He really didn’t know if they’d ever
find out what happened to her, did he? She didn’t need to know that, however,
she needed answers. He bloody well needed answers. There were so many bad
repercussions that could come from this, they didn’t have a choice but to
figure out what had happened to her.

She nodded and stepped back, looking at the
two of them. They were both so much larger than her, she must have felt
overwhelmed by them. “Do I have a choice?” she asked.

He felt another rare smile forming, she was
brave for such a little thing. “No, I’m afraid you don’t, but I swear I’ll
not hurt you.” Without good reason, he added silently. At the moment she didn’t need to know he was
about to cut her.

Derian stood away from the wall. “I, too, swear by my
cursed gods that I will not hurt you, you’re safe with us.”

“We’ll
protect you from the man who took you, I won’t let him get you back.” Keegan
had never meant anything more in his life, and he wondered just why he was
making such a stupid promise he doubted he’d be able to keep.

Cassandra’s eyes widened and her
soft, full lips formed an “O”. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Do
you know how you got away, darlin’?” Keegan asked.

She shook her head her eyes dropping away
from his to the floor. “No, I don’t remember anything.”

Keegan pulled his knife from his pocket and
opened it. “I
know I said I wouldn’t hurt you, but this will only sting for a second, I
promise.” He hoped she’d trust him this time, he didn’t want to force her, but
he had to show her what she’d become.

She looked at his knife. “Well, if you’ve already
killed me as you said, what more can you do to me?”

He smiled, liking her spunk. “Nothing, lass. I’ve done
the worst to you I can.” At least physically. He’d have to keep his distance to
prevent any emotional damage he’d be sure to inflict on her if he allowed her
to get too close to him. He held out his hand, palm up, “Give me your hand,
darlin’.”

She looked at him, hesitating only a moment
before she gave it to him. Ignoring his reaction to her soft warmth, he turned
her hand over, palm up, and made a small cut on the tip of her thumb. No deeper
than a paper cut.

She hissed at the pain and jerked her hand
from his. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at him. “Holy bird turd, that’s
the last time I trust you.”

His smile widened. She amused him, and he
hadn’t
been amused by a woman or anyone in more than a century. Not even his beautiful
wife had affected him like this small slip of a woman, he realized to his
amazement. He pulled his shirt out of his jeans and taking her hand back,
gently wiped the blood away from her thumb. He bent down and kissed the pad.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, darlin’.”

He lifted his head, looked in her eyes and
felt like he’d
been sucker-punched. Did he see an answering desire burning in the deep green
depths? Glancing down before he did something stupid, like pull her into his
arms and kiss her senseless, he turned her thumb toward her. “See, no cut.
That’s what happened to your fingers.”

Her eyes widened as she stared at her
thumb. “That’s
just so not normal.” She ran her finger over the healed skin.

Derian took her hand and kissed her thumb
where the cut had been. “It’s normal for us, my dear.”

Keegan had an inexplicable desire to ram
his fist in the old Greek’s face and knock the knowing smile off his
face. He bloody well knew what affect his kissing Cassandra’s hand had on
Keegan. He was baiting him. The Greek had always been an arsehole.

“Why
didn’t it heal before?” Cassandra asked, breaking the stare-down between the
two men.

Derian looked at her. “Now that’s a good
question. Are you saying you’ve never healed, ever?”

“No,
until I woke here, my fingers have all been cut and bleeding. Fortunately, it’s
never deep and they start to heal naturally, but the cuts never disappeared
until now.”

“You
were wearing your glasses when I hit you. Didn’t your vision improve while you
were with the man?”

Looking as confused as Keegan felt, she
shook her head. “No.”

“So,
why would it work now?” Keegan asked Derian.

“My
guess? Her death.”

Keegan nodded. “Yes, I noticed that
healing was enhanced after my heart stopped the first time. I always healed,
but beatings would take up to two days. It was only after that, getting beaten
went away within hours.”

“And
since your final stage was brought on before you reached full maturity, you
were luckier than most of us, my friend.”

Keegan never felt lucky. “Absolutely. Someone
trying to kill me when I was fifteen is something to rejoice in.”

“You
don’t look fifteen.” Cassandra’s comment stopped whatever cutting remark he was
sure the Greek was about to make.

Her eyes raked over him, and Keegan felt
like he’d
been set on fire. Good thing Derian was there, because, damn, after a look like
that there was no telling what he would have done with her. Although he had a
pretty good idea. And it would have been the stupidest thing he’d ever done in
his life. That was saying a lot. In his early years, doing stupid shite had
been one of his favorite pastimes.

Derian chuckled. “No. Lucky for him he got
to keep growing.”

“Yes,
he did.” Her eyes stopped at his crotch, an enticing blush spreading across her
cheeks.

Bloody hell, she was making it worse. If
this kept up much longer, he was going to have to go hide in his gym and beat
the crap out of the bag. It was the only thing that was going to remove the
images floating around in his head.

Derian laughed full out and Keegan wanted
to bury his blade in him again. To make matters worse, Cassandra’s blush was followed by
a smile of appreciation that was beginning to unleash a desire in him that
hadn’t been unleashed in centuries. He could feel the need in him growing by
leaps and bounds.

Bio:

Kimberly Cummons wrote her first Gothic romance novel while still in high school. Believing there were more profitable ways to earn a living, she turned away from her first love and earned a Bachelors’ Degree in Business Education. Over the years, she’s worked at a number of interesting small businesses. Her favorite job will always be the local historical society where she met her own personal hero. Never forgetting her love of writing, Kimberly continued to write romances in different genres, but paranormal and suspense have proven to be her favorites.